Should Nick Breckon alone write Season Three?
Nick Breckon wrote Episode One 'All That Remains' and Episode Two 'A House Divided' for The Walking Dead: Season Two, he was the lead writer of the entire season and also wrote the fifth episode 'No Going Back' with Pierre Shorette (who has worked on The Wolf Among Us, and Tales From The Borderlands), Breckon also wrote 'All That Remains' with Andrew Grant, whilst working on 'A House Divided' by himself. He seems to be good and arguably the first two episodes are pretty good, up to standard with what we've seen from Season One well granted they did make their mistakes like the dog situation, though arguably 'A House Divided' which was written by Breckon alone is one of the better episodes, and hey 'No Going Back' is pretty good.
Telltale has always worked with having multiple writers but maybe Breckon should work on Season Three alone this time or maybe only with Pierre Shorette (who is a pretty good writer). Thoughts? Are there any other writers you'd like to see (don't say Vanaman...I know guys, I wish he was back too)?
Comments
I'd like to say yes, as Vanaman did entrust S2 to Breckon, but
no.
In almost all of cases, you need a team of numerous professionals to receive good content based off of a sensible creative consensus. If Nick Breckon is a good writer, then I will be happy if he is in the leading team. But I wouldn't entrust Season Three to anybody alone.
Personally, I would prefer if it was both Nick Breckon and Pierre Shorette were lead writers, they're both pretty good I would say and do understand the importance of actual choice in story. I would like to see Mark Darin (who wrote the amazing 'Starved For Help') come back to write an episode too, rather than just solely be on the team for "additional design".
Honestly Ive never liked how he wrote off characters so easily to make choice matter (nick/bonnie) and also made characters do 180 flips in terms of personality (nick, rebecca,carlos,kenny,jane,bonnie,mike). Characters act so differently even in the same episode. Of course that may have not all been down to him
I think Nick Breckon is a very talented writer. I thought the first two episodes were great. I don't even think the other writers were that bad. Yeah, there were problems (a lot of problems), but I feel like most of them were due to lack of communication. Different writers obviously had different directions which left the final product feeling kind of clunky.
If Sean Vanaman trusted Breckon, then I definitely do. Most of the problems in No Going Back seemed to result from everyone dying in Amid the Ruins, and leaving him with pretty much no one to kill and no arcs to finish off.
I am honestly cool with him working on Season 3. As for other people, I don't really know. I just have this feeling that this Season will be great, and the writers will be on top of things. It might be a good idea to have multiple writers collaborating, but one person should be the lead writer. Breckon would work just fine for me.
I don't mind if Nick is the lead writer of the new season. But hopefully he has also learned from his experiences too.
Besides, Sean Vanaman wasn't the sole writer for S1, either. There were other people on the writing team that were just as responsible as he was for how the episodes turned out. And truth be told, with the way Telltale operates, it'd be pretty hard for one guy to handle.
With an episodic live development model, you kind of need a team of writers to get the job done, especially in a sensible time frame. There's games that were written mainly by one person, sure, but most of those were games that were worked on for years, where the writers and designers had a lot of time to perfect it. With Telltale's stuff, they don't have years to write a story due to the episodic model; they have to write their games piecemeal, so to speak. And that would be difficult for one guy alone to handle. Sure, they can put together a basic overarching storyline for a season, but they still have to write the individual episodes. The fact that most of their series have turned out as good as they did is an accomplishment in its own right.
Invisible tag that you can't see: @HarjKS.
I can't actually discuss individual writers, give that I honestly don't know jack about anybody behind the game.
All I am aware of is that Emily Garrison was a director for Michonne and now Batman, Laura Perusco and Job Stauffer manage marketing, then the voice actors, and Jared Emerson-Johnson is the person behind the soundtracks. Oh, and the CEO of Telltale is the guy with the mustache.
The dude that wrote the masterpieces 'No Going Back' and 'A House Divided'? Sure! Make him the lead writer! Altough I quite disliked the first episode, EP2 and EP5 were so fucking awesome that I can forget about All That Remains quite stale and boring episode.
He wasn't just additional design, he was the lead designer for Episodes 1 and 4.
Nick Breckon should definitely be the head writer for Season 3, however, he should not be the sole writer. Instead, they should do something similar to what they did with Tales From the Borderlands. In that series, Pierre Shorette was the lead writer for Episodes 1, 2, and 5, but he also co-wrote Episodes 3 and 4. One person cannot be solely responsible for the writing of an entire game, it takes a team of writers to get it done, but I would feel very comfortable with Nick leading that team and having a huge role in the writing of every episode, instead of just overseeing the development of them.
And while I agree with Pierre Shorette being a sort of co-lead or writing a lot for Season 3, it looks like he'll be involved with Batman, so I don't think that's going to happen.
Also, Breckon had an additional writing credit on Amid the Ruins, as did Shorette. Not sure how far that goes, could be a few additional lines, or a scene change, but yeah, he's also credited on that.
Do the writers help make choices matter? Or does someone else do it?
Personally i want the season 1 writers back but that's not going to happen. I don't care who writes season 3 but i feel it has to be an improvement on certain things from season 2 and longer episodes, more character interaction and backgrounds, hubs etc
I wouldn't necessarily say he should write all of Season 3 alone, but I do want him to be a writer in it. Add some other writers for the episodes, too. It would add some diversity.
The main thing is they don't need to kill nearly every single character like they did with the Cabin Group. If some were kept alive the whole season, you'd be in more suspense of who is gonna live and who is gonna die before it's all over.
J.T. Petty, huh? What an ironic name.
As for the question, I'm torn: on one hand, A House Divided is my favorite episode of Season 2 so he definitely knows his stuff in my book; on the other hand, I do think having more than one writer, or at least a group of consultants and editors, is relatively essential for making sure each episode lines up cohesively while also giving each its own memorabilia.
So, as long as he brings his A game, I could care less.(Probably because I know nothing about the writing process)
Fair enough, but him writing one episode would be cool
I think everyone who was involved in writing season 2 should be replaced. Time to give someone else a chance, someone with new fresh ideas. Although TTG is imo "family business"; same names all over again.
Agreed and also with season 3 characters surviving longer will make us care about them more. That is if development of them is good enough
Everyone from the Team is good at writing and the problems of Season 2's writing wasnt that the writers where bad. Its was because they rushed it. With more time S2 would've been better.
I love the episodes Nick wrote, but he's gonna need a team. A project this big requires more than one person. It felt like when the writers for S2 were switched for the episode they did not communicate what one wanted to focus on for characters or plot. Just get to point B from point A and do what you want in between. I want Nick and whoever else they get to write S3, but work together dammit.
Michonne was written by many new employees, so I don't know what you mean by it being a family business family with the same names.
If Nick Breckon is considering writing for Season 3, then I feel that he may need a little help with stepping up his game and consider taking a few pages from the writers of Season 1.
His episodes "All That Remains" and "A House Divided" were both satisfactory and engaging in character arcs and dramatic moments (the self-surgery scene and Nick's struggle to come clean with his crime comes to mind), even though it did have a few hit and misses with characters not behaving consistently between episodes (Rebecca was the worst offender).
But for me, "No Going Back" was an unfortunate mess that was held back with forced dramatic moments and certain characters being favored more than others by the writers, to the point where other characters felt needlessly demonized for the sake of shock value.
He's a good writer, but I feel that he could strive to do better, especially in a team.
Should Nick Breckon alone write Season Three?
No, because for something like a game typically you need more than one writer to get the job done. Yes I hope Nick Breckon's part of the team, but I hope there are others there as well he can work with.
Some of that comes from baggage borne of the questionable choices of the previous episode. So while I personally thought most of the basic ideas of No Going Back were pretty solid(Arvo's descent, Kenny's slippage, Bonnie's arc, and especially Luke's closure and Kenny vs. Jane), it was being held back due to comparatively minor pacing issues and the apparent attempt to downplay/ignore certain things from Amid the Ruins.
It's a shame, because I did appreciate the group's bonding moment from the campfire scene, and I had found it to be one of the stronger moments of Season 2 that I hope that the writers would consider doing more of these in future episodes.
Nevertheless, I still think that "No Going Back" was a terrible episode, and an especially terrible finale. I could type down paragraphs on why this episode was one of the weakest in the series, but I'd rather not go on a tangent if I don't need to.
Maybe someone should create a topic about address that and each episode of each Season in general....
A lot of the Season 2 team also worked on Season 1, you know.
Obviously Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin are the only reason S1 was good, not the other 50+ people working on it
Once again what Blind Sniper said. It seems most of Season 2's issues is every episode took it in a different direction, and there was a lack of communicated between writers.
Blah blah blah blah whine whine whine. I only like Nick Blah. Why did Shaun leave Telltale whine blah.
I can't tell if you're pretending to make fun of these types of fans, or if you're assuming I or anyone here has said that, because if you read what we said...none of us are.
I know. Does it mean the TWD formula is now exhausted? I'd rather blame writers and search new ones.
I don't think so at all. Yes, when it comes to the issues of Season Two, a lot of people focus primarily on the story and therefore it should mostly be the writers who are to blame because well they are the ones who work on the story. But at the same time, I personally feel like the hate on Season Two is way, way too much and the writers aren't necessarily "bad" writers, there were just other issues that didn't get resolved along the way. Spending time looking for new ones is going to be a waste of time, especially so late into the development cycle, we do not want another Telltale game where they decide to rewrite the story halfway through (The Wolf Among Us, Season Two, etc.)
The "TWD formula" isn't exhausted, Telltale have done an excellent job at keeping it fresh, I mean look at the situations in Season Two and the Michonne DLC. Things like escaping a crazy community or making your way through a walker herd under sniper fire, are really great and tense ideas. The writers for me are fine, but I'm just wondering whether people want more of Nick Breckon as to maybe take more of a lead and prevent any miscommunication between writers or if they have any other options.
Not alone completely but I'd definitely like for him to be the lead writer. My favourite episodes were the ones he was involved in.
Hell yeah, Nick's my man!
Just not alone. He's good but no miracle maker to write the whole story and dialogues in these few months long spaces between episodes alone.